Move over, Buzz and Woody. Swim aside, Nemo. A boy's club no more, the pantheon of Pixar heroes is making room for a lady. Meet Merida, an ancient princess for the 21st century.

With her fiery red curls and a look of fierce determination in her blue eyes, Merida raises her bow and arrow and takes aim at the long-standing Pixar tradition of male heroes. After an astonishing run of 12 hits in a row, lucky No. 13 stars the first female protagonist in a Disney/Pixar production.

"Brave" also happens to be Pixar's first fairy tale, and Merida happens to be that most Disney of staples: a princess. It's 10th century Scotland, and teenage Merida finds herself in the throes of a personal rebellion. She's supposed to do all the things a young princess would do - all the things her mother, prim Queen Elinor, wants her to do. But she's got a wild, adventurous spirit like her warrior dad, King Fergus, head of the DunBroch clan. Merida would rather be riding through the Highlands on her trusty steed, shooting arrows from her quiver and scaling Crow's Tooth Rock to drink from Fire Falls.

It's not as if there haven't been memorable female characters in Pixar movies - Cowgirl Jessie in the "Toy Story" movies, Dory in "Finding Nemo," Mrs. Incredible and Violet in "The Incredibles" come to mind - but this time, a young woman is at the very center of the story.

In the spirit of the movie, we gathered together some of the women working on "Brave" at Pixar's Emeryville studio to talk about the continually evolving art of computer animation and adding a little girl power to the Pixar mix.

"We don't do things by formula or checklist here," says "Brave" producer Katherine Sarafian about why it has taken so long to feature a female protagonist. "It's really all about timing. Six years ago, Brenda Chapman pitched an idea to our brain trust, and that idea was based on her relationship with her daughter, who was 6 at the time. She was wondering what this kid was going to be like when she was a teenager, and so Merida, this spirited girl, came out of a filmmaker's mind. It was the alignment of the right time and the right idea."

Chapman, who co-wrote "Brave" with Irene Mecchi, was the movie's original director, but in fall 2010, owing to what the studio line describes as "creative differences," Mark Andrews was brought on board to take over directorial duties. Both Chapman and Andrews will receive direction credit on the final film.

Creative drama aside, "Brave" promises to be yet another creative leap forward for the Pixar artisans, who have crafted extraordinary Scottish vistas and rich textures that fill every frame.

Claudia Chung, a simulation supervisor, specializes in cloth and hair, two things abundantly apparent in "Brave." She points proudly to the eight layers of cloth in King Fergus' costume, held down by a leather belt.

"That sounds like a fashion issue, but I can tell you we've never done anything that complex on a film," she says. "It was an incredible challenge."

And then there's Merida's mane of extraordinary red curls. "If we had done Merida's hair with our older technology, I think we'd still be rendering the film five years from now," Chung says. "To have the volume of hair, to have it move in the wind, we had to come up with a breakthrough in complexity.

"But that's one of the cool things about Pixar. We have really smart people on the artistic side and on the technology side. The two groups come together in the interest of the film, in this case to make red curly hair, and create innovation. The hair is important to the character, so we had to just pound and pound and get the technology right. It's all about being in the room together and getting it right."

Danielle Feinberg, a director of photography who specializes in the lighting effects that are so key to the Pixar look, says that the creative team never looks at the script and says, "That's too hard" or "We don't know how to do that." "We might grimace," Feinberg says, "but then we say, 'OK. We'll find a way.' That's why we're always pushing."

Associate producer Mary Alice Drumm describes the six years of "Brave" as "long and challenging" but says the film has come in "relatively on schedule and on budget."

"That's a testament to Danielle and Claudia and their teams," Drumm says. "This kind of work can be stressful at times, but you're working with amazing people who hold such a high bar of professionalism. We set goals, and everyone completely rallies."

Drumm says she sees "Brave" as a movie about families and about redefining expectations for female protagonists. "I think when people think about a girl as a hero, they think less strong, less brave. But Merida is brave like her father and brave like her mother. She's a very relatable person, and I think people are going to have some interesting things to talk about after they see the movie."

Producer Sarafian describes Merida as brave in different ways. "There's the bravery of adventure, with sword fights and chases and all that," she says. "Then there's the bravery of being seen for who you are. If you see yourself in a certain way and the rest of the world sees you in another way, that's a struggle. It's brave to look at who you are and speak your truth and find your way in the world."

Though a lot of attention will focus on Merida's gender, Sarafian says the film is still a Pixar movie, which guarantees, as she puts it, "big action, big heart, big humor, big adventure."

"It's the classic Pixar pedigree," she says. "We deliver grand entertainment for everybody, and I think with 'Brave' we have definitely done that."{sbox}